Where the Heart Is
by jdmusiclover
Summary: Captain Hook learns that home is not a place; it's not a thing; it's not even a feeling. Home is a blonde savior who needs to be saved from her false memories. One shot taking place at the very end of the "lost year." Implied Captain Swan.


Killian stepped heavily onto the _Jolly Roger_. His eyes swept her every surface. The moonlight shone brightly on her well-beloved sails and rigging. The bottle of memory potion sat heavily in Killian's breast pocket, and he absently fingered the rough parchment of the letter…someone…had sent him.

His course was set; his plan already set in motion. There was no question. He would do anything to be of assistance to the woman who'd stolen his heart as handily as any pirate. He'd die for her; he'd kill for her; he'd give away every last possession he owned. His Swan needed him, and _nothing_ would stop him from coming to her aid. He only wished there'd been another way. The _Jolly_ had been his home, his family for more years than he could count. When all else failed him, she stood by his side, tall and proud. The thought of what he was about to do threatened to bring tears to his eyes.

The moment the bird had landed on his shoulder and delivered its burden, Killian had set his men ashore and sailed like hell as far from the Enchanted Forest as he could manage. He'd stood at her mast and watched in stony silence as a cloud of purple smoke devoured the place of her birth, sweeping her family and friends away with it. His heart clenched just thinking of it. Somehow her family had become his family too. He could no more leave them to their fate than he could re-grow the hand the Crocodile had stolen from him.

And so, when he heard tales of a man…a pirate...who was in possession of a magic bean, he knew what he had to do.

Killian walked slowly along the main deck, knowing these were the last moments he would have with his ship. He trailed his hand along her smooth railing as memories played through his mind like the moving pictures he'd seen in Storybrooke. He believed Swan's lad had called them 'movies.'

cscscscscscs

_Twelve-year old Killian ran through the docks as quickly as he could, considering the number of sailors littering the shore. Panic filled him. He had to find the _Jewel of the Realm_! He had to find her!_

_When he'd awoken that morning to find his father gone without a trace, he could only think of one thing to do, one person who could help him. Liam. His eighteen-year-old brother was his hero. He knew full well that Liam could do anything. He'd know what to do. He'd make this ache, this emptiness in his chest go away!_

_But Liam was sailing out with the _Jewel of the Realm_ this morning, and if Killian didn't catch him before the ship sailed, it would be six months before he would be back. He scanned the docks looking for the ship he'd admired so much from afar._

_Finally her magnificent sails came into view._

"_Liam!" Killian shouted, desperate to be heard over the chaos of the docks. He saw a young man near the gangplank stop and turn at the sound of his voice. The man turned, and Killian found himself face to face with his brother. Killian ran forward, tears he could no longer hold back making rivers down his dirty face._

"_Killian!" Liam said in surprise as the boy reached him and wrapped his stick thin arms around him. "Lad, what's the matter?"_

"_He's gone, Liam." Killian murmured brokenly. "When I woke this morning, I found Da gone!"_

_Killian watched as Liam's jaw tightened and his fists clenched. _

"_What am I going to do, Liam?" Killian said in a small voice. "There's no one! No one else will care for me."_

_Pain marked Liam's face for a moment. "There's me, my boy," Liam said in a voice far heavier than an eighteen-year-old's should be. "What you'll do is come with me. It wasn't an hour past that the captain complained that we've not yet replace our cabin boy. He'll be more than pleased to offer you the position when I've vouched for you."_

"_Really?" Killian asked, the warmth of hope slowly seeping in past the despair. "You would do that for me?"  
Liam draped an arm around Killian's shoulders. "Aye, lad," he said thickly. "We're family, and family looks out for one another."_

cscscscscscs

Only a few years later, Liam had been taken from him, the victim of an unscrupulous king and his blind, terrifying ambition. Killian closed his eyes willing the familiar ached to recede. He continued his final tour of the ship. His feet took him to the hatch leading down to his quarters.

cscscscscscs

_He heard her laughter and the percussive sound of her boots as she ran across the deck. He climbed the ladder until he emerged onto a deck bathed by the first brilliant lights of the dawn._

"_Milah!" he called as she headed in his direction. "Where have you been, lass?"_

_She laughed, throwing her slim arms around his neck. He leaned in automatically to receive the kiss she offered him._

"_Miss me, pirate?" she asked playfully._

"_Always," he said with a grin far closer to a leer. "I woke this morning to a bed completely devoid of a dark haired vixen. I was desolated."_

_She laughed at the exaggerated pout he sent her direction._

"_When you learn just what I've occupied myself with, you'll forgive me, Killian."_

_She reached a sunburned hand into her bodice, his eyes following every movement. Slowly, she withdrew a single, skeleton key._

"_What's this?" he asked when he was finally able to drag his eyes from her décolletage._

"_This, my fine fellow," she gloated, "just so happens to be the key to the harbor master's vault!"_

_The harbor master's vault? "Milah, you don't mean the vault positively brimming with the filthy lucre the _king_ extracted from his unfortunate subjects?"_

"_Aye," she said with a wink, "the vault you and your men spent the better part of last night trying to devise a way to break into."_

_He took her into his arms and twirled her around. "Milah, you're a marvel!" he said with a delighted laugh. "How did you manage this feat?"_

_She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "You taught me all you knew about thievery and I was an apt pupil."_

_He growled deep in his throat. "Well, darling," he said in a low, intimate voice, "perhaps I'd best take you below. I believe there are a few more lessons I need to teach you in the privacy of our quarters."_

_She tossed him a saucy look as she headed for the hatch. "You're welcome to try, but I'm a slow learner. I may need a fair amount of…practice…before I've mastered your lessons."_

_He grinned. "I'm a patient man. I'll spend as much time as I must."_

cscscscscscscscs

And it was here, on this very deck his Milah had been ripped from him. The ache, the loneliness that had never truly left his heart flared up strong and agonizing. Resolutely, Killian walked on, stopping to run his hand across the ship's wheel. Another memory rushed up to meet him.

cscscscscscscs

"_Will you teach me? Really?" Hook smiled down at Milah's son as he gripped the wheel yet far too large for him. He ruffled the boy's dark curls, so much like his love's._

"_Aye, lad," he said with a grin, "it's quite the sailor you will be."_

"_Why?" the lad said, looking up at him suspiciously. "You're a pirate. Why are you doing all this for me?"_

_His heart clenched. Aye, he was a pirate. It was a life he chose, a life he loved, a life at which he excelled. But sometimes he wished he could go back and be the naval lieutenant he once was. He saw the suspicion and the animosity in this lad's eyes, and he wished more than anything to expunge them._

"_I suppose," he said carefully, "I see a bit of myself in you."_

"_Yourself?," he asked skeptically._

"_Aye," Hook said with an earnest nod. "If it hadn't been for a sailor taking me under his wing when I was your age, heaven only knows what would have become of me."_

"_When your father abandoned you?"_

"_Aye."_

"_Just like my papa," the lad said with a hard voice. The familiar hatred rose up at the mention of the Crocodile, but something else warred with it. This lad was not merely the Crocodile's son, he was Milah's as well. It suddenly occurred to Hook that his life needn't be utterly devoid of love. He could make Milah's dream a reality. He could make a home with this lad who looked so much like her._

cscscscscscscscs

Yet, it had only been a few days later that Baelfire had utterly rejected him. Shame pooled in the pit of Killian's stomach as he remembered the events of that night. He remembered the lost ones boarding his ship and demanding the boy. He remembered standing by idly and letting them take him. What a cad he'd been!

Killian turned from the wheel and made his way back down to the deck. It was here that one of the most startling revelations in three-hundred years had been made to him.

cscscscscscscs

_The storm raged relentlessly. It was no stronger than the storm that raged within him. He took another swing at Charming. Never was a man less aptly named! As Hook's fist connected with his adversary's face, he heard the sounds of Snow tussling with the Evil Queen, and more distantly, the sound of Miss Swan yelling at all of them. _

_Suddenly there was the sound of a splash; Hook would never know how he heard it over the wild commotion._

"_Emma!" Charming screamed running to the railing. The prince made to vault over the side, but Hook stopped him with a hand to his arm._

"_She'll drown!" Charming screamed angrily._

"_So will you, mate!" Hook said sharply. "Let me help!"_

_ Grabbing a rope, he tied it around the prince and lowered him down. And then they waited. Each beat of his heart felt like a decade. Where was she? Why didn't they reemerge? Finally, Charming broke the surface hauling Emma at his side. She was utterly still._

_ The time between the moment Charming hauled her aboard and the moment she gasped her first breath felt like a lifetime. Suddenly, he knew. This woman meant more to him than anyone in the last three hundred years. If she was ripped from him before he'd even been given the chance to try for her heart, he scarcely knew what he would do._

cscscscscscscscs

Steps firm, mouth set, Killian stepped off the _Jolly_'s gangplank for the last time ever. It was only a few short months ago that he'd taken her back from Blackbeard. A few short months since Ariel had berated him for valuing a few planks of wood and a sail above true love. Now, he knew without a doubt that there was nothing he wouldn't do for his own true love. He'd give away a million _Jolly Rogers_ for the chance to spend only one more moment in his beloved's presence.

Killian never looked back as he strode purposefully for the tavern where he would trade his _Jolly_ for the bean. His ship may have been his home for many a year, but Emma was his very heart.

_Notes:_

_-Here's just a little something I felt compelled to write to take the edge off of my hiatus-induced OUAT withdrawal! I can't stop thinking about what a huge deal it was for Killian to give up the Jolly Roger for Emma. That ship meant the world to him._

_-By the way, my headcanon is that Hook traded the Jolly to Blackbeard for the bean. In the headcanon, Ariel saved Blackbeard from drowning so that he could get her back to Eric. I don't know; it just seems a shame to really kill off Blackbeard after only a few short scenes. There seems to be so much potential there. Besides, we never saw a body, so how can we be absolutely sure he died?_


End file.
